Down the Congo 



in the social life of the Congo. It must be remembered 

 that after his seven years' training the native soldier is at 

 liberty to leave the service and many of them do so, with 

 the result that as time goes on fresh i;ecruits are trained, 

 replacing those disbanded, with the result that every village 

 in the Congo contains one or more such men. Being idle and 

 having had just that touch of authority thrust into their 

 hands sufficient to make them restless, they constitute the 

 menace to which I refer. There can be no " colour bar " 

 in the Congo and safety lies only in the co-operation of the 

 more intelligent and enlightened heads of the people, in 

 developing the resources of the country along lines that will 

 give them a share in its prosperity. 



The ray of light (as it seems to me) that wUl enter to 

 dispel the gloom of menace is education, not religious psalm- 

 singing instruction, but an industrial education containing 

 the elements of religious training that would fit the intelligent 

 native for industrial and business life, and induce him to 

 support a stable government. Such a teaching is required 

 as that given below, which was so finely formulated by the 

 American — General Armstrong — as long ago as 1870, when 

 speaking on the education of the American negro, and which 

 has been taken for the guiding principle of the African 

 Educational Commission and the Trustees of the Phelps- 

 Stokes Fund when they designed plans to meet the educational 

 needs of the native races and the present and prospective 

 demands of West African Colonies. 



" The education needed is one that touches upon the whole 

 range of life, that aims at the formation of good habits and 

 sound principles, that considers the details of each day, that 

 enjoins, in respect of diet, regularity, proper selection and 



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